Along with the what can feel like overwhelming legal and financial pressure; the dissolution of a marriage often carries great psychological strain as well. Psychologists compare going through a painful breakup with the ordeal of going through withdrawal from a psychologically or chemically dependant drug. Often coupled with the agony of breaking up for good with someone who was once considered a life partner is the pain of infidelity.

For many, the anguish of going through a divorce is too much to bear alone. Many people going through or affected by these troubling times turn to divorce support services for help. In fact, divorce is so common in contemporary culture that an entire divorce support career path come into being not just in the U.S., but around the world. One of the more obvious divorce support specialists are divorce lawyers, who council the parties on how to arrive at an economic settlement. Divorce attorneys specialize in divorce law and specialize in dividing shared property in the interest of their clients. There are also a host of clerks, judges and arbitration workers who deal with the enormous amount of divorce records that must pass through the court system every year. Beyond the legal aspects of divorce is the psychological aftermath. Former spouses can turn to individual psychological counselors for one on one support or they can attend divorce support groups to meet and share with peers who are going through the same difficulties. Also, many child psychologists specialize in helping children adjust to the changes in their families and new custody arrangements.